I've spent the entire week searching Hollywood for the actress Jill Gascoine. Men of a certain age will remember her as the intractable yet sexy DI Maggie Forbes in the 80s detective series, The Gentle Touch. Others might say: "Who?"

She's married to Alfred Molina, aka Dr Otto Octavius in Spiderman 2, and judging by the pictures on the internet looks about 20 years younger than she did back in 1984. Jill and Fred, if I may be so bold, now live in Los Angeles and my friend Tim, who has been visiting from the UK, had a vision during a stormy night in Hove that he was going to meet her in an LA restaurant, minutes after ordering the cobb salad. He's a big fan, possibly her only fan, so we searched. And we searched. We searched the beaches, we searched the hills and we ate many a cobb salad but we didn't once spot the elusive Jill.

She's now a successful author but we discovered that, joy of joys, she recently returned to screen acting. According to IMDb, After Midnight, a thriller with Simon Templar himself, Ian Ogilvy, is currently in production and Tim is beside himself with excitement. All it needs is a series of cameos from Jacqueline Bisset, Simon MacCorkindale and Jenny Agutter and it has the potential to become his most favourite film ever. I just hope Jill's return to the silver screen gets the press it deserves because after this week I've become almost as obsessed with her as Tim.

Unfortunately, the only person getting any exposure right now is thespian upstart Shia LaBeouf. He may sound like a French sous chef but apparently he's the next big thing. Seven days ago I hadn't heard of Shia (rhymes with hiya for those of you who are equally ignorant) even though I'd seen both I, Robot and Constantine, but such is the power of the Hollywood PR machine, I now know what shampoo he uses and his inside leg measurement. He's been everywhere. And I mean, everywhere. I woke up early yesterday morning to find him making coffee in my kitchen. He presented Saturday Night Live (nice shot of his parents in the audience sobbing with pride), he made it onto all the morning shows, the late night shows, magazine covers and many enormous billboards across town promoting Disturbia. Ask me anything you like about him. Go on, ask me. (The answers are Cheerios, Yasmine Bleeth and Mrs Spencer from third grade).

People may purport to hate the media but it works wonders when pushing a product. Hot Fuzz had great press out here ("from the guys who brought you Shaun of the Dead!") and is doing very healthy business indeed: the Americans may not get the Cornetto gags but they love the guns, violence and cross-cultural references. I must remember to throw in a few of those myself when writing the next draft of my film.

I confess, I've written nothing of note this week, not unless you count two birthday cards and a shopping list. My brain was fried after bashing out the first draft and three months into my LA odyssey, I'm feeling philosophical about this monumental life change. I'm moving house again (that makes four times in six months) and I'm still trying to sell my first car (the Taurus) which has proven to be a big, expensive mistake.

I tell you, it's hard work orchestrating a mid-life rebirth. I moved here to follow my dream, which six months ago was to win an Oscar for my scriptwriting, but now it's simply to have a postcode I can remember and my own crockery. Or if I'm really lucky, a glimpse of Jill Gascoine.